Red flagged hopper revisited

A very good session in the grove today. The solution of the red flagged hopper revealed, this was meant to be my backup shot. A stunning bright red dragonfly landed, but only for a couple of seconds, one for the future for sure. Also, I nailed the green bee. I didn't get the hover, but still, it was a good shot. Only 9am and I'm back in the lab.

There were tears. The flower shots were all grossly over exposed with a blue/cyan cast. I had this yesterday with the butterfly shot, but not as bad and I was able to pull it back with the processing. But with the bee, I would have been manufacturing my own colors, which would have been getting away from the whole point, so I trashed the image.

I have figured out the problem. I had left the camera on spot metering by accident. The flower head was offset to one side and so the metering was measuring the exposure of the dark undergrowth, trying to brighten it up with extra exposure. Stupid really, I should have known that the exposure speeds seemed a bit on the slow side, like four stops too slow. I will probably return this afternoon and do a bunch of bracket shots for test purposes, as I don't want this to happen again. On the positive side, this means I am going to have more speed available.

Everyday in the grove I have been collecting hopper shots. I have shots of about six different species of hopper and they all have these red blobs, hardly visible until you get into the lab. Today's contribution was a larger hopper that I spotted in the undergrowth as I was doing the flower crouch. It obviously felt concealed, as I was able to get the minimum focal distance for the best clarity.

This shot confirms what I had deduced from all the hopper shots, that the red flags were in fact some type of parasite, a hopper tick if you like. I have one shot of a hopper with five of these little nasties attached, with probably more on the non-visible side. The macro world is cruel and ruthless, I wouldn't want to live down there in such a brutal environment.

Original red flagged hopper blip

Dave